Migration

by Vanessa Vigneswaramoorthy

They set her birthright on fire

in July 1983. When they doused

the black flames, she collected

her pain from the ashes, hid them

in her shoes so she could share

them with her children.

She moved over land and sea

from unsure place to unsure place

until she arrived in an apartment

she struggled to afford. The stories

she tells her children wrap gold chains

around their necks and ankles,

keeps them close.

She offers the ashes to her children,

tells them to press them into diamonds.

She soothed their pain with words in

other tongues, that were snuck out

of the motherland in their father’s

shoes. Her children were bathed

in cinders, carry ashes in their pockets

for their own children to press into diamonds.